Hannah Arendt sometimes denied that she was a philosopher, but these essays tell us why she may be remembered as the quintessential philosopher of our time. A German Jewish woman, she grew up in a country rich in thought and culture but unable to protect simple human decency. She fled to America, where political life was still possible but intellectuals were regarded as performers in a mental circus--entertaining but of little ultimate importance. To bring the two together, Arendt defined herself as a political theorist. But these essays show the roots of her political theory deep in the Western past; St. Augustine and Kant above all are visible. Her essays light up issues--the emancipation of women, federalism in eastern Europe, and many others--in a way that often makes them seem as if they were written yesterday. Briefly the mistress of Heidegger (noted here as a "fox" who "built a trap as his burrow") and the lifelong friend of Jaspers, she never became the prisoner of any movement. None of these essays is technical, and the translations are lucid. This first of three volumes of her uncollected or unpublished essays should have a place in any sizable library.- Leslie Armour, Univ. of OttawaCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.